NOTHOFAGUS
- Nothofagus, Blume, Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. i. 307 (1850); Oerstedt, Vidensk. Selsk. Skrift. V. ix. 331 (1873); Solereder, System. Werth Holzstructur, 253 (1885); Krasser, Ann. K.-K. Naturhist. Hofmuseums, Wien, xi. 149 (1896).
- Calucechinus and Calusparassus, Hombron et Jacquinot, Voy. Pôle. Sud. Atlas, tt. 6–8 (1853).
- Lophozonia, Turczaninow, Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Mosc. xxxi. 396 (1858).
- Fagus, section Nothofagus, Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. iii. 410 (1880).
This genus comprises the beeches inhabiting extra-tropical South America, Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and was formerly considered to be a section of the genus Fagus, which, however, as now limited, includes only the species of the northern hemisphere. The two genera are distinguished as follows:—
Nothofagus.—Trees or shrubs, with deciduous or evergreen foliage.[1] Flowers moncecious or rarely dicecious, either solitary or in groups of threes. Fruit: involucre, two-, three- or four-valved, usually bearing externally transverse entire, toothed or lobed lamellæ, with or without gland-tipped processes; or in rare cases the valves are smooth and without appendages; nuts, solitary or three in each involucre.
Fagus.—Trees with deciduous foliage. Flowers moncecious; the staminate numerous in globose heads, the pistillate in pairs. Fruit: involucre, covered externally with bristly, deltoid or foliaceous processes; nuts, two in each involucre.
About seventeen[2] distinct species of Nothofagus are known, constituting three natural sections, based on the characters of the foliage:—
I. Leaves deciduous, soft in texture, folded in bud along the lateral nerves, crenate or serrate in margin.
1. Nothofagus antarctica, Oerstedt. Large tree, S. America. Introduced into cultivation. Leaves ovate, ¾ to 1 inch long; lateral nerves three to five pairs; margin slightly lobed, unequally crenate, with three to five teeth between the ends of each adjacent pair of nerves.
2. Nothofagus Montagnei,[3] Reiche. Shrub or low tree. Chonos Archipelago. Not introduced. A little-known species, of which I have seen no specimen; leaves 3 inch long, firmer in texture and more conspicuously veined above than those of the preceding species, from which it is also distinguished by the yellow-coloured pubescence on the branchlets.
- ↑ Bunbury, in Bot. Fragments, 322 (1883), writes an interesting article on the different types of foliage which are met with in this genus.
- ↑ N. alpina, Reiche (Fagus alpina, Poeppig et Endlicher), is a doubtful species.
- ↑ Calucechinus Montagnei, Hombron et Jacquinot, loc. cit. t. 7 (1853). Fagus Montagnei, Philippi, Linnæa, xxix. 45 (1857).
545
